View full sizeLaura KeeneBirders on a pelagic trip out of Vermilion last weekend enjoyed close-up views of a parasitic jaeger.

For all of you neophyte birders – and from what I’ve observed, there are a lot of you – the sightings this past week should serve as a real eye-opener.

But first, a brief history of our Great Lake, Erie.

Before Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) opened in 1994, there was Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a cavernous old monstrosity that was great for watching Browns games, but not so great for Indians games.

In 1986, for example, an Indians vs. Boston Red Sox game was postponed due to a massive fog bank that rolled in off the lake. Which prompted Red Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd to remark: “That’s what they get for building a park on the ocean.”

View full sizeJerry TalkingtonCommon eider are abundant on the East Coast, but rare on the Great Lakes.

A classic faux pas, you say? I say “The Can” was more accurate than he knew.

Sea birds were all the rage last week in Northeast Ohio. While I was enjoying the ornithological view of the Atlantic Ocean from a lofty overlook at Cape Ann, Massachusetts, birders who stuck closer to home were picking up many of the same species I was seeing.

Lest we forget, Lake Erie is connected to the East Coast via Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway, and sea birds migrating Eastward are programmed to follow this route in the fall.

I thought it was great to see the three species of scoters – surf, black and white-winged – streaming by along the rocky coast of Cape Ann. But birders in Northeast Ohio were seeing the same birds on Lake Erie — uncommon but expected sightings in these parts.

A couple from Holland was excited when a pair of brant flew by us. But that was nothing compared to the brant numbers being counted here, with flocks of 30, 25, 10 and eight reported by Jen Brumfield, Jerry Talkington, Dan Sanders and Doreene Linzell last week.

View full sizeJerry TalkingtonThis is how most harlequin ducks appear on Lake Erie -- not gaudy like the males that inhabit the East Coast.

I had plenty of common and red-throated loons. So did the Lake Erie birders. Likewise with flocks of Bonaparte’s gulls, common and Forster’s terns, and red-necked grebes. In addition to several flybys along the lakefront, a red-necked grebe remained Sunday at the Best Reservoir outside of Chardon, where it had been seen for the past week gobbling down bluegill.

I thought I had something special when I found a young harlequin duck diving with the seals and great cormorants among the rocky islands in Rockport Harbor. Then Larry Richardson posted a report from Rocky River Park on Sunday: three harlequin ducks flew by while he was there.

It was thrilling to watch Northern gannets diving for fish in the coastal waters of the Atlantic. And although no gannets appeared on Lake Erie, there were several reports of parasitic and pomarine jaegers seen from a pelagic Lake Erie boating trip on Saturday – predatory sea birds I unfortunately missed in Massachusetts.

Late-departing shorebirds remained on the sandy coast of Cape Ann, including black-bellied and semipalmated plovers, plus sanderling scampering in the surf. All that remain here are small flocks of dunlin.

View full sizeLaura KeeneCommon loons appeared during the Vermilion pelagic trip last weekend.

I spotted a few lingering laughing gulls, and common eider were ever-present. But I didn’t see any bufflehead like the flock of five that dashed by Headlands Beach State Park on Sunday.

Watching sea birds is one of the primary reasons we visit coastal America. But it’s clear that, as far as the birds are concerned, Oil Can Boyd knew more about the lakefront than we gave him credit for: Lake Erie really is a lot like an ocean.

SIGHTINGS

An amazingly reliable red phalarope has been dabbling about in the waters beside the Headlands Beach State Park lighthouse for the past two days. Headlands Crew members Emil Bacik, Jerry Talkington and Ray Hannikman found the most seagoing of the three phalarope species.

Last week, Talkington found two Northern shrikes actively hunting grasshoppers on the dunes at Headlands Beach.

Waterfowl are returning in major numbers to Northeast Ohio. At the Wellington Reservoir, Ernie Cornelius and Micki Hendrick observed hundreds of ruddy ducks, plus horned grebes, common loons, gadwall, American wigeon, and scaup.

Brumfield found a large flock of sparrows -- including clay-colored and fox -- in the grass along the fence at Dike 14. Other sparrows included field, American tree, song, chipping, white-throated, and dark-eyed junco.

A flock of pine siskins flew into Cathy Priebe's yard in Grafton on Monday.

BIRD NEWS

Jen Brumfield, a naturalist with the Cleveland Metroparks and guide for Local Patch Birding Tours will present a program to the Greater Cleveland Audubon Society at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 9, titled ``What birds have taught me, and how to be a better birder/observer." The program will be held in the Rare Book Room at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, 1 Wade Oval Drive. Brumfield, of Akron, is a nationally recognized birder and a spectacular speaker.

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